WVU Campus Composting Project

The Campus Composting Project is a volunteer-based effort to help reduce food waste on campus while supplying a renewable product that can be utilized in horticultural mixes and soil amendments for campus gardens and landscaping.

The project aims to reduce the amount of food waste created on campus from being transported to the local landfills. By composting the organic materials collected from our campus kitchen partners, we are able to create a high-quality usable end-product for student agricultural activities and use on campus grounds.

Compost itself has a number of beneficial and agroecological attributes that will only enhance our student food and agricultural initiatives on campus and those of the surrounding community.

An impact on the future. The initiation of this project will help us as we strive to reduce our campus carbon imprint and to embrace practices that guide us toward a greener and more sustainable campus environment. Creating the path to tomorrow’s campus, today.

At this time, raw and fresh vegetable and fruit kitchen scraps, coffee grounds and filters are collected from participating campus locations. No dairy or meat is currently accepted for composting. Additionally, other various “brown” materials such as dried leaves collected on campus are also included in our composting project.

The food waste efforts of the Campus Composting Project began in late 2022. Currently, food waste is picked up daily from the Evansdale Cafe, Monday through Friday, and transported to the Westover composting site. Once on-site, aerated static piles are maintained and turned using low-tech (and replicable at home) composting methods to create a high-quality end-product usable for various campus agricultural initiatives and beautification efforts.